The present invention relates to water coolers, including, but not limited to, a cooling container that holds a cooling medium for use in the indirect cooling of bottled drinking water. Devices and methods for cooling drinking water, particularly for supplying cooled uncontaminated drinking water, are known. Typically, water coolers include a reservoir that receives drinking water from a water bottle and a refrigeration system that cools the drinking water in a reservoir. Because the exterior of a water bottle can become contaminated through handling or exposure to the environment, some water coolers use a hygienic seal between the cooler and the water bottle. The hygienic seal includes a plug in a water bottle outlet that cleans and seals against a feed tube of the cooler so as to reduce possible contamination of the drinking water. The feed tube is connected to a sealed reservoir. When a water bottle is placed in the water cooler, the feed tube penetrates and seals against the plug at the water bottle outlet. For these types of cooler, the refrigeration system that cools the reservoir and the contained drinking water is typically powered by an electric motor. Because of the electric power requirement, these types of water coolers are most commonly found inside and near buildings and structures that have easy access to electric power.
For more remote supply of cool drinking water, such as on a golf course, a source of power to drive a refrigeration system may not be readily available. Often water coolers located at remote outside locations include a single insulated container or cooler. Cool drinking water is produced by commingling drinking water from a water bottle or other purified source and ice. The water and the ice are simply mixed together in the container that is opened to ambient conditions. Opening the cooler to ambient conditions, handling the cooler, and handling the ice and water that are charged to the cooler often results in the contamination of the drinking water. For example, physical handling of ice and water by a golf course grounds crew member can result in cooled, but contaminated drinking water. To avoid contamination of drinking water, some remote water cooling systems use a system of plastic bags. The plastic bags are filled with drinking water and placed inside a container. The container is subsequently filled with ice so as to surround the water bag with ice. Remote water coolers that use plastic bags full of water require reuse of the bags which includes the time consuming and costly cleaning of the plastic bags. In addition, contact of the plastic bags by water contaminated through the handling and loading of ice cubes charged to the cooler can result in drinking water contamination.
Accordingly, there is a need for a drinking water cooler that can indirectly cool drinking water without the need for electric driven refrigeration, yet prevents the drinking water from becoming contaminated during the refilling of the water source and the cooling medium, for example ice, and is easy to use.